


Lost in the Fog: Paused for a Decision

by Ginny305



Series: Lost in the Fog [8]
Category: CSI: NY
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: story_arc, Dimension Travel, M/M, Multi, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-04
Updated: 2010-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-12 10:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginny305/pseuds/Ginny305
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don's travelling between worlds.  He's found a world that is almost exactly like his, but is it close enough?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in the Fog: Paused for a Decision

**Author's Note:**

> Don is traveling between universes, trying to get home. Each story is standalone, but the series should be read from the beginning to make sense.

Title: Lost in the Fog: Paused for a Decision  
Author: Ginny  
Fandom: CSI:NY  
Pairing: Mac/Danny/Don, Mac/Lindsay (AU)  
Disclaimer: No one mentioned here is mine. I'm just borrowing and will return them before the new season starts.  
Rating: FRT  
Warnings: AU  
Challenge: story_arc Prompt 8: Pause  
Summary: Don's found a world that is almost exactly like his  
Author's Notes: It's done. This is the last one needing to be written. It's done before the summer is over, even if not all parts will be posted before the school year starts. Thanks to Dee for helping me with descriptions when I absolutely was stuck. Thank you. I would still be staring at that part in frustration.

~*~*~

Don stood outside the yellow crime scene tape and watched his team work the scene. Angell was interviewing the witness while Danny took photos of the scene. He could see Stella and Lindsay taking fingerprints and he knew that Hawkes had gone back to the morgue with the body to start the autopsy. Mac was, he knew from the look on the man's face, piecing together what the witness was saying to what the scene was saying. It was all so normal.

And wrong.

He turned and walked away from the scene. The fact that he could do so just underscored the fact that he wasn't home. It wasn't his crime scene and, as similar to them as they were, it wasn't really his team that he was watching.

It hurt to think how close he'd been to getting home. If he hadn't been in the damn subway .... He forcefully shook his head to clear the thought. He'd been hopeful that the next time the Upsalong glowed it would be blue, a second chance at getting home, but it hadn't. One of the Macs that he'd met on a later world had told him that it wasn't often that the Uspalong actually glowed blue to show the connection between the traveler and home, but that it did happen, which meant that Don still had a chance of getting home every time the Fog came in.

He wasn't sure if Mac had just been trying to make him feel better or not.

He'd been on this world for over a month and the Uspalong hadn't glowed at all. Don was starting to think that he was stuck there. As far as worlds went, this one was the closest to his own that he'd found. The similarities haunted him at times. One of the biggest differences he'd seen between this team and his own was that Sheldon had gone back to the morgue after spending a few months as a CSI. He occasionally moonlighted when the team needed him, but he'd found that he preferred the morgue and solving the mysteries down there.

He'd laughed when, after Sheldon had explained why he'd switched back, Danny had immediately added that the truth was Sheldon was a vampire and he didn't like the sunlight. The fact that they were at the same bar he went to with his people just added to the feeling of almost being home.

It was the almost that killed him. Almost. He could remember a high school math teacher saying that close only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades. They were almost like the people he'd left behind, but they weren't them.

He sat on a bench and stared out over the Hudson at Newark as he thought about how he'd arrived in this world. He had materialized in the lab, for once with a smooth landing. From the way that Danny had freaked out he had thought it was a world that had no idea that the Fog existed. It was only later that he'd learned they did know about the Fog, but their Don had been killed in the explosion set by Lessing.

Lindsay had explained it to him before dropping the bombshell that she and Mac were married. It was a toss-up to which had surprised him more.

But eventually the differences had faded and what he saw most was how similar they were to everyone that he'd been taken from.

Mac still worked too hard, even if he did it in fewer hours.

Stella was still strong-willed and loyal.

Hawke's dry sense of humor and seemingly endless random knowledge worked well with Sid's quirky personality down in the lab.

Lindsay, despite being Mac's wife, was as eager to please him as ever. And she was definitely the Montana they'd grown to like since she'd joined them. He'd had to try hard not to laugh when he saw her slam a suspect who'd tried to run into a car. It had immediately reminded him of Mac's story of her first day on the job.

And Danny ... Danny was so much like his Danny that it sometimes hurt to see him. He had the same chip on his shoulder, the same stubbornness and the same sense of humor that had him and Stella trading bad puns back and forth.

Even this Gerrard was the same. He and Mac clashed, but he had gotten along with Don. He'd even offered him his job back.

He could take it and everything would be almost normal again.

He could be happy here. He knew he could be. Almost happy.

He thought of the summer before when he, Mac, and Danny had driven to Chicago to visit Mac's family. On the way back Danny had insisted that they stop at Cedar Point. Neither he nor Mac had been able to understand why that park was different than Six Flaggs, but Danny had insisted that it was.

He'd dragged them on all fifteen of the coasters but what Don remembered most was the feeling at the top of Top Thrill Dragster.

The train had sat at the top for only a few seconds, but those seconds had stretched into an eternity as it sat paused on the edge. Would it go forwards and complete the ride or would it be a rollback, backwards down the track to try again. Everyone held their breath, staring out ahead of them, more than four hundred feet from the ground, waiting to see and then the train had rolled the few inches it needed and continued on down the track.

He felt like he was there again. His entire life was paused, waiting to see if he'd take the step forward and plunge back to where he had started, ending up where he should be, or if he'd take the step back. He could decide to stay. He wouldn't be where he had expected to be, but a new route.

He stared out across the river as the sun set and tried to come to a decision. Was almost enough?

TBC


End file.
